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1.06.2010

Looking Back

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Now that the end-of-year lists have been published, everyone is looking ahead to what’s looming for 2010. Not me. I’m going to spend the month in retrospection. The Miami extravaganza aside, I normally post two or three times a week, which means I don't get to write about everything that interests me. So this month I’m going to dedicate my blog time to a look back at all the art I wish I'd been able to squeeze into the year: some gallery and museums shows, a great public sculpture, and a few studio visits. To start, I’m going to look at my own favorite posts. Here's what I chose out of the 172 I wrote (though to tell the truth, I liked them all). Click on the titles to access the posts. .

Cold? Come Stand Next to TheseA stretch of frigid weather inspired this winter post, in which a suggestion of licking flames and glowing embers from Teresita Fernandez, Julian Jackson and others, even Fra Angelico, heated up the room, at least conceptually.

For this post I got to be both reporter and curator, pairing the trash-into-art sculptures I saw throughout the fairs with photos from Joy Garnett's Unmonumental series. Big thanks to Joy for letting me pull images from her blog,Newsgrist. And a first for me: I was able to limit my Armory coverage to three posts.

My dear friend and mentor remembers his good friend and mentor. It took 40 years for the story to get told, and I’m pleased to be the one who got Stephen to tell it over the course of two months and several interviews
.Here, Stephen in the viewing room of his gallery holding a book on Morandi. That frontispiece photo of the artist was shot by Stephen in Morandi's home in Bologna in the 60s
Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded at MoMAMoMA's second-floor drawing galleries often have the best shows in the house: thoughful and generally small in scale, the very opposite of the bombastic blockbusters upstairs. And because the work is typically organized from work in the collection, photography is allowed. (I posted about the Geo/Metric show there in 2008.) Here, work by Eva Hesse, foreground, and Dorothea Rockburne

My running route used to take me under a rusted hulk of railroad overpass, a home to pigeons that paved the sidewalk below with their droppings. What a difference now! The newly renovated High Line is a park is where you come to stroll and look out at the Hudson.Here, the tracks planted with native wildflowers.

Trees!

Trunks, branches and roots were everywhere in evidence. I saw plenty of arboreal attitude in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Miami. I looked to metaphors to explain the abundance. Are we putting down roots for stability? Branching out? Out on a limb? All of the above?

.Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009It’s my annual obsession, er, opus. The thematic posts were the most interesting because they went beyond reporting on the who, what, where and allowed me to begin to make visual sense of an event that brought together some 1000+ dealers and 10,000+ artists.
Here, from Working the Angles: Robert Mangold at the Pace Wildenstein booth, at ABMB

6 comments:

Joanne, As if I wasn't already a fan. This seals it. You have outdone yourself all year with excellent posts: great ideas, fair reporting (you can take that both ways), generous illustrations. Your blog is the first one I check every morning. I am inspired!

A friend of mine does something similar, she makes a list of all of the highlights from the previous year. This helps her to focus on what she wants to repeat or expand upon in the New Year. Looking back seems to be a great way to move forward.

There are times, Joanne, when I wonder if you haven't unlocked the mystery of how to convert a day of 24 hours into 36 or more. I stand back in admiration & thank you for what you have done & let us share.

Your writing, reporting, advice and insight continues to be a source of inspiration and education for me. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to write and for the energy and dedication you devote to this endeavor. We are all the richer for your efforts!

But may I return the kind words and say how much I appreciate your comments, and those of everyone who has left a word of encouragement or an opinion (even if I don't always agree with it; it keeps the dialog lively--right Tony?)

Happy New Year and congratulations on creating such an interesting blog. I especially liked the Stephen Haller/Morandi piece, What I Saw..., and the Marketing Mondays series. Great work and all the best in 2010!

Links

Artists Choose Artists

Artist Annell Livingston writes about my work for the new blog, Vasari 21, founded by Ann Landi. Click pic for info and a link

Recent Solo: "Silk Road"

"Joanne Mattera: The Silk Road Series" was at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York, May-July. Some paintings are available for viewing at the gallery. Click pic for gallery info

Recent: August Geometry

More than just a summer show. Au-gust: adjective, respected and impressive. At the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Click pic for info

Recent

I'm having a great year of exhibitions and catalogs. This volume, published by Space Gallery, Denver, on the occasion of the exhibition, "Pattern: Geometric|Organic," is viewable online and available for sale as a hard-copy volume. Click pic for exhibition info and a link to the catalog. That's my "Chromatic Geometry 29" on the cover

James Panero Reviews Doppler Shift

Writing in The New Criterion, Panero calls Doppler Shift "a smart group show, " noting the work of "artists who interest me most these days." There's a nice shout out to Mary Birmingham, the curator; to Mel Prest, who originated the concept; and to me, among others. Click pic for the review

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"Textility," curated by Mary Birmingham and myself for the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit (where Birmingham is the chief curator), looked at contemporary painting, sculpture and work on paper in which textile elements were referenced or employed. The exhibition is over, but you can see this exhibition on line. Click on the links below to read and see more.

Review of Textility

Click pic to access review. Then click on page images to enlarge them for legibility

Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi

When he was a young man, the New York art dealer Stephen Haller had a brief but life-changing friendship with Giorgio Morandi, who was nearing the end of his days. Click pic below for story.

Haller holding a photograph of himself with Morandi in the early Sixties. Click pic for story

Followers

My book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, was published by Watson-Guptill in 2001. It's the first commercially published book on contemporary encaustic. There are three sections: history, with images of the famed Greco-Egyptian Fayum portraits; a gallery of contemporary painting and sculpture (including the work of Jasper Johns, Kay WalkingStick, Heather Hutchison, Johannes Girardoni and myself), and technical information, including an interview with Michael Duffy, a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art.